ABSTRACT
This chapter first examines some important scholarly research on intellectuals and mass culture. Representative figures are John Carey and Russell Lynes. The New York intellectuals inherited an intellectual prejudice toward mass culture, engendered by traditional cultural historicist thinking. Next, the author undertakes a textual analysis of the Dissent post-Sixties narratives. During the 1960s, Dissent writers such as Irving Howe, Dwight Macdonald, Harold Rosenberg, Gunther Anders, Henry Rabassiere, and Herbert J. Gans exchanged opinions about mass culture. Based on their discussions and debates during the 1960s, the term “The Masses” began to be employed to describe people who were neither the barbarians, nor inferior members of society traditionally indicated by the term. The masses were not the threatening revolutionary (or anti-revolutionary) mob that would bring down civilization. Instead, “the masses” was designated to signify active supporters and creators of modern popular culture. They were on track to eliminate the binary divide of high and low culture. “The masses” thus becomes one of the key tropes in the post-Sixties narratives of the Dissent mass culture critique.
